Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The lies of the Right

OK, this one's just great (courtesy of Wonkette).

So Andy McCarty over at the National Review's "The Corner" blog complains that Barack Obama is directing over $4 billion dollars to Acorn as payback for the group's political support:

Keeping Politics Out of the "Stimulus" Bill [Andy McCarthy]

So lemme make sure I have this straight: President Unifier is warning Republicans to "keep politics out of" debate over the Stimulus Bill Generational Theft Act into which his party has stuck $4B+ for ACORN, among other pay-off-our-political-allies goodies?
And where does McCarthy come up with this $4 billion figure? He helpfully references a Fox News article that states:
House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement over the weekend noting that the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress provides $4.19 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities.”

He said the money was previously limited to state and local governments, but that Democrats now want part of it to be available to non-profit entities. That means groups like ACORN would be eligible for a portion of the funds.
It's really like a schizophrenic game of "telephone" where: (1) Obama decides to open neighborhood stabilization project funds to non-profits in addition to state and local governments. (2) This leads John Boehner to protest on the off chance that Acorn might apply for some of this money. (3) Finally, once this information manages to sink down to the bottom of the intellectual swamp that is The Corner it gets twisted and transmogrified such that now Obama is personally handing Acorn a $4 billion check (about 5% of the entire proposed stimulus package).

Do these Corner bloggers really have no shame nor basic sense of honesty? No, wait... don't answer that.

(Correction: $4 billion is about .05% of the stimulus pachage, not 5%, as noted in the comments.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think your larger point is excellent, and I hope you don't mind my commenting on an old post, but isn't $4 billion closer to 0.5% of a $800 billion stimulus package than 5%?

Patriot's Quill said...

Oops, you're right. Nonetheless, the notion that Obama would funnel $4 bil to ACORN is just the sort of preposterous claim that you wonder hoe the Corner can make with a straight face.